This is Hacker Public Radio episode 3778 for Wednesday, the 25th of January 2023.
Today's show is entitled, a squirrel being on Google products and Google security.
It is hosted by Zenfloatored 2 and is about 20 minutes long.
It carries an explicit flag.
The summary is I made it being podcast about Google products, interoperability, and
they're allows you security.
Hello boys and girls from Zenfloatored your favorite magical forest squirrel.
Former human being converted into squirrel by aliens in the 1960s and atheist.
With another podcast definitely because they're screaming at us and beating
boards on the concrete saying we got to make podcasts.
Well let me tell you about my Google world.
I've got these Chromebooks, I'm recording this on the Samsung 310 Chromebook which is a really
nice little Chromebook that reminds me of the Dell mini-tambi.
It's so small and tiny and it's got a battery life over 10 hours.
I love the Chromebooks.
Anyway I want to talk a little bit about Android phones for a second.
I can use Android phones Wi-Fi hotspot with T-Mobile to get on the internet post shows
like this one while I'm out and about visiting relatives.
Anyway I was down in Texas and my phone started acting kind of funny.
So I decided I'd erase it, you know like you erase a Chromebook, I basically did a
factor reset on it, problem is squirrel didn't remember that they have two factor
authentication Google and it all goes right back to your stupid phone.
So I couldn't log in to or create any new instances of Chrome, you know, install them on
Linux or log into Gmail, let's say on Firefox, I couldn't do that with that phone.
I did manage to turn off the two factor authentication on at least the Chrome side
to allow me to install Linux distributions on this one laptop and install Chrome or log into
Google with Firefox that way.
It wouldn't allow me to just enter my password because he's time at asked, I need to verify
you're who you're at and we're going to do that through your phone.
So I asked it to send me a text message, it wouldn't even do that, it wouldn't do anything.
It locked me out of my account and as I was locked out I became angry with two factor
authentication because I started thinking about it, you know, I realized that this isn't
so much about security as it is about just then making sure that you always have an Android
phone, you know, and you don't get rid of that Android phone that Android presence is always with you.
And it started to piss me off.
Anyway, the way Google's got stuff set up is you can turn off two factor authentication on the
Chrome side, but that's separate from turning it off on the Android cell phone side.
It's like two separate switches.
So anyway, I traveled the day after to another Texas town and some time around 10 or 11 in the
morning, I tried to log back into my Android phone again and get my Google account activated.
And it let me do it. Surprisingly, without a text message, no verification or or any silly nonsense.
And I thought, well, this is just crazy. What kind of security is that?
So basically what they did was they locked me out of my account for a day because I
effectively set my phone as punishment for doing it, I guess. I don't know.
It certainly wasn't security the way they let me back in again, but I'm happy I got my phone back,
but in the two factor authentication just flat pisses me off and I realized that the
security aspects of it are important. But the way it was handled, I was reading a website about
it the day I actually reset the phone and realized I screwed up that it would work if I went home
and got my own Wi-Fi with the phone because it realized that that phone had been through my home
Wi-Fi to receive updates and stuff. So it would let me log back in and they said that right
of the website. But it didn't mention if me going to some Camelite Conro, Texas the next day
from the Dallas area and all of a sudden being able to log in from whatever cell tower it is
they have down there. Isn't that weird? And you know I've never been there before. So how does it
know it was me? I don't know. Maybe it was the fact that I had the Samsung 310 Chromebook with me
and I was using it through the hot spot that it detected that oh this must be the same guy
because the Chrome authentication is just as strong as the Android. Anyway it pissed me off that
Google decided that they weren't going to provide a switch or button that would pop up on your
Chromebook saying hey would you lock to log back into your cell phone? You know it's always one way
from a Chrome browser or a Chrome network Chromebook. You have to authenticate against the Android
phone but it's never, never you on an Android phone having to authenticate with a Chromebook.
You see what I'm saying? In other words they could send this authorization code to my Chromebook
as well as they could the Android phone and have them both covered. Don't you think? I mean wouldn't
that just be common sense but anyway they don't have any option to do that apparently. They have no
option to do that. And it really freaked me out when they wouldn't send me a text message with their
six digit code on it. You know I get an understand where you don't get a pop up say did you
log in on a phone that's not logged in itself? You know it's been erased but you can send a
damp text message. Anyway it wouldn't do that. So the whole thing pretty much pissed me off.
I was rather impressed with the security and I felt like two-factor authentication is basically
just another way of forcing their market handle with Android phones. The other way that I see them
for forcing the hand with Android phones is the QR codes that are popping up all over
and grocery stores at government offices and places like Pepsi and Coca-Cola and whatnot.
You walk into a building and you need to know what to do. There's a QR thing that you can scan.
In fact I saw a rental card that had a QR code stuck to the windshield of the inside that you
could scan with the phone and it would tell you about the car you just rented. You know your budget
car or whatever. Anyway they're that plus my doctor's office just recently went with a
software company called Helio H-E-L-H-E-A-L-I-O and they've got an electron app that is in the
place door and that's how I get my doctor's diagnosis and orders and communicate with the pharmacy.
So I mean they're really getting a tip point where the next thing you know I'll be voting for
busher Biden or I mean excuse me Trupper or Biden using some damn app from Google you know it's
it's going to be just that freaking crazy. So I guess they're going to get it to point where if you
lost your phone and your phone became disabled basically you were a dead man walking.
So anyway I'll get off that subject. I'm just today is Ramlin Squirrel Day and I will
I will post the highlights of my complaint session you know humans get to complain all the time
squirrels should have the right to complain as well don't you think don't you agree?
So anyway let's talk about easy tether and using easy tether to access yourself on
to use all malenics or fedora or a ubiquitous product or deviant you know one of the major
distributions to use an easy tether driver even even free BSD has an easy tether driver where you
can you can get cell phone speed to you know like grab an ISO through our torrent you know a torrent
phone or watch a movie for instance or video that has a higher bandwidth than they offer on your
stupid android hotspot you know it's funny but they try to if I use SSH to go back into my
Open BSD server all of a sudden we don't get this five to six megabit per second bandwidth
that we do through Google services they show great favor with the cell towers to Google servers
but apparently the cell companies they won't let you communicate with your own private server
much past two or three hundred kilobox per second that's what it's deadly slow even with these
it isn't they they they they throttle it in fact if you're using a torrent I noticed to do the
same thing they'll throttle it down about three hundred kilobox per second even with easy tether
and of course I said the Wi-Fi hotspot on team levels just pathetic it's like 80 kilobox per second
you there's a lot of videos you can't even play using a Wi-Fi hotspot you can play a lot of
YouTube stuff and a little bit of bits you but not much else if anything and I would just
sitting here thinking with this bandwidth hungry as these Chromebooks are it's funny but when I
don't start doing some major transfers to and from Google Drive using one of my Chromebooks
through a relay that I set up with a fedora and an easy tether driver and make my own Wi-Fi hotspot
I found that these Chromebooks didn't really throw files up to and down from Google Drive I mean
if they see you're communicating Google Drive oh you can get 1011 megabits per second bandwidth
I'm just it's jaw dropping you can get the whole slack where cd and like three minutes or less
you know that I've got stored out on Google Drive it's it's jaw dropping the performance that you have
if you're going to Google as opposed to anyone else you know even even bitshoot or a rumble or any
of the other sites they get throttled compared to YouTube and Google and it's such a lot of
things and you think that that Google had so much power over our cell phone companies that the
and I'm going to just call this the silly bastards because I'm angry at them and I'm getting
angry at the whole Chromebook thing I'm angry that they have these angered phones but they don't
have a way to allow a Google Chromebook to obtain that sort of bandwidth through the phone we
have to go through the silly little motor and that's just a pile of crap you know it blows me away
I can sit there and watch it suck down five and six megabits per second watching an HD
video on YouTube through the Android phone but yet obviously they've got a throttle and
complain and bitch about me doing SSH over a server that has only one megabit per second
connection up under no actually it's two and a half I'm sorry 2.6 something like that
megabit per second up and down on the upper BSD server hello it's got to cut that down to 250
kilobits per second you know no why why doesn't Google have their own easy tether that will work
through the USB or work through the Bluetooth or even the Wi-Fi or their own damn Android phones
that allows Chromebooks to obtain the bandwidth that one gets when you're using an Android on
these cell towers the cell frequencies then they make you wonder and I understand with the
new 5G phones it's no different I mean they have the basically the same policies are going
to it even though you'll be at 5G and it's got like a hundred megabit per second bandwidth in
some areas you're still only going to get 80 or 90 kilobits per second through the stupid Wi-Fi
hotspot isn't they just paying you shouldn't stupid and it is it's how they're going to do it
because obviously they want everybody in the planet to communicate with Google servers
through their cell phone networks and only using an Android phone you can't use Chrome OS you can't
use dev one or devion or all-malenics or anything else open BSD can't use anything to communicate
through that network other than a damn Android phone or a iOS phone and to Google properties
that's it that's the only time you're going to get that sort of bandwidth folks it's utterly
insane in fact it got to a point I had to transfer a 20 video files about open BSD I wanted it on my
laptop and here's what I did I logged into my I did an SSH to the open BSD server that I have
at the house while I was out in the roof and I found the 20 videos I wanted put them in a file folder
and then I had our clone upload those to the Google Drive that I have
which it did in you know five or six minutes and then from Google Drive I took my Android phone
and downloaded all 20 of these videos one at a time because you can't do file folders on the
stupid Android app you know in Google Drive it's one freaking video at a time got it at a good
bandwidth you know each one of them transferred down in a minute or so and they were pretty good
size video files then I just tethered the Android phone to a Linux powered laptop and I turned
I said okay to you know file transfer for the MTP file transfer and I transfer them off of the
phone onto the hard drive of the Linux laptop I couldn't do it directly for the damn server
which would be more efficient of course then going through Google Drive but it was the only way I could
get the bandwidth to get all those files and say less than a day I mean their policies are
crazy and you know I'm surprised that we as a nation are allowing them to basically
take over our airwaves you know we grant them a license to run these cell towers they don't own
the damn airwaves we grant them privileges to use those airwaves to put their cell towers up we should
be telling them how they're going to run it in the manager period and to have it all
biased toward one company for just Android services alone it is like when I look at Google
hmm when I look at this Chromebook or a Chrome installation on say dev one or something of the
Chrome web browser I see one company okay when I look at Android which is also Google product
it's like I'm looking at another company and the two don't get along with each other they don't
cross communicate don't they don't interoperated all I can't get the bandwidth on the Chromebook
that you get on the Android phone because it's not allowed I mean they keep halfing it up
and I can't authorize a login on an Android phone from a known established Chromebook with good
credentials for Google which is insane that's insane they don't even have an option to do it
every two factor thing that they've got points right back at the Android phone that was affected
that was reset isn't I just insane boys and girls anyway I'm just in a tizzy about this I
thought I'd make a video about it other than that I just wanted to tell you I've been goofing around
with various Linux distributions and I don't want to trash geeks but I just tried the geeks 1.4
install CD on it to sheba laptop and got about halfway through and just died so I restarted it
tried it again same thing the halfway through and died that's with a picking the known desktop
so I guess I'll try again today or tomorrow with the XSC desktop and see if I can get geeks installed
that there installed DVD is really buggy but I didn't want to try it and see how they're doing I haven't
used it over a year and I also thought I might try downloading a magia and installing that and see
what magia's up to because magia is almost like fedora in that you know they'll have the latest
most modern kernel in there and software it's magia's almost like a rolling release where
they're actual release cycles like when they go from magia 8 to 9 which will happen soon
they're just changing their their little control center where they allow you to set up
sand with servers and stuff like that you know your time zone and all that mantp step
you know just their control interface but to run magia as our call is his like running a rolling
release by the way you can't get an easy to the driver from magia at all the last one they made
missed her magia 6 and that was quite some time ago it doesn't seem to work with the magia 8 at all
so there's probably some fix for that anyway that's all I had I just wanted to touch base
you know the seasons the holiday seasons hope everybody's had a good holiday season
and that their hibernation has been going well for the winter I haven't been doing much
hibernating I've been traveling a little bit the weather here in the Gulf Coast states Oklahoma
Texas Louisiana Arkansas in Mexico has been warm it's been in the 60s on a couple days it's
practically got up to almost 80 degrees there's no sign of winter I can't remember the last day
it was below freezing even in the early morning back this morning when I woke up it was
I think it was in the 40s somewhere so anyway they were certainly not going to have any snow or
ice this winter if we do it it's going to be a free and I thought I'd just post this to you
as my squirrel being session you know I can't use the real words the real human words so
I'll use my being session which is like bumblebee of course for squirrel complaining
bye for now everyone have a pleasant day love to everyone from Saint Flood of the school
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